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Nov 13, 2003

This week's theme
Archaic words

This week's words
clepe
sennight
anon
gainsay
hearken

Next week’s theme
Misc. words

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hearken

hearken (HAHR-ken) also harken or hark verb intr.:
1. To pay attention; listen.
2. To return to a previous subject (usually in the form of hearken back).

[From Middle English herknen, from Old English he(o)rcnian.]

"The reasons long given by the old guard for barring women -- that they will cause disorder and create competition among the men, that they play with a different character than men, that their pregnancies would disrupt scheduling -- seem laughably antiquated. Such notions conjure up images of women as temptresses and hearken to times when the sight of a cello between a woman's legs was considered unfeminine."
Anthony Tommasini; The Vienna Philharmonic Returns, Virtually a Male Bastion; The New York Times; Mar 15, 1999.

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